#bg8

Today our tasks in our tutorials were our Evolutions through this course as a designer. Once I heard, I was running out the door, basically. Okay, not really – but I wasn’t keen.

I wasn’t keen because I felt like I hadn’t changed.  I hadn’t moved on.

But it was also because I wasn’t keen – at all. I hadn’t been keen for a while then – whether it was about life, my course, or myself as a designer. The prospect of looking back at my semester wasn’t a fun one, but I moved on and did the work.

Before we did that however, we spoke of our definition of design – which led us back to the first tutorial we had. Previously, the definition was “A Creative and innovative process spanning from mental to physical concepts with intent to create a refined product/idea.”

I was, however, in a different tutorial at the time, but that remains to be what I had agreed on with that class. I did, technically as previously said, did not quite agree with it, mostly due to my attachment to my own feelings with design, and certainly now I do not feel as if it’s so personal, due to my negative feelings towards the course and my disconnect with design as I’ve learnt more about it. In our groups, we discussed Design once again and my group came up with a definition that I was rather happy with, which was “Purpose driven Creativity”.

However, I still felt as if now, my view of design wasn’t so fun and free, but rather taxing and essentially, it felt like the capitalism of art. I’m not sure how I felt about that, or even how I continue to feel about it as I write this blog post, and I won’t try to conceal my displeasure in what I’ve come to learn through this unit and hot it has shaped me to consider finding my real calling in life – as I am no longer sure design is what it is.

Moving on to the work, despite being a hard ask, most of my work was actually a little comedic but also a little depressing – which is essentially a good descriptor of me as a person, so I guess I’m not too far off prom the point of the tasks. The first task was to essentially make a graphic of how our journey has come, and I decided, with how disappointed I had felt in my own work and my passion, that I would trust back in my graphing skills of senior year in Maths B, and it took me back, I do have to confess.

What I ended up with was again, pretty depressing.

Even my small comedic commentary (“”can’t speak if you’re dead” or “imagine ugly crying & lots of Zoloft” or even “I’m going to be asking for some Xanax right about now”) couldn’t hide how badly I thought this semester was going, and nothing I could do – not even my excellent graphing skills, could hide that.

So I tried my hardest to do it again, maybe drawing it out, and I honestly came up with close to nothing. And by close to nothing, I mean a half-baked sketch of me in the middle of a fork down the road, one heading to design and one to somewhere else I don’t quite know (the one heading to design was a cliff to fall off of, if I’m honest.)

Basically, I wasn’t having a fun time. When our tutor, Gen, told us to make a comic strip of a risk we’ve taken, I also drew a blank – quite metaphorically, at first. But then I soldiered on and literally drew a blank – three to be precise, for my comic strip. I decided to draw one of my assessments, essentially.

As you can see, I’m sombre once again. But at least I know how to make light of a quite heavy comic – to me, it’s heavy anyway. My risk that I chose was, as shown, that I had chosen to use Adobe Illustrator for my poster assessment for another class of mine, DXB102 (which was Visual Communications). I had chosen it as I actually had used it once before – the once before being the logo I made for my first assessment for the very same class.

I had never used any adobe program before, and I felt an immense bout of anxiety and fear going into it, but with some encouragement from my tutor, I went ahead with it, and currently, I’m facing a problem too big for me to conquer myself. I’m about to fail miserably, and eventually die alone and without any hopes or dreams, - no, maybe I’m exaggerating slightly. But really, It feels as if I’m going to not do well at all with this assessment, and I’m not sure if the risk I’ve taken is worth it, as there are so many easier avenues I could have pursued – avenues I’m slightly more comfortable with.

Object Permanence

The next task we had was one everyone was all too familiar with; designing a tattoo for yourself.

This time, it was more like we were redesigning it, however if you wanted to go on a tangent, there was no-one stopping you. Showing progress and change as the outcome, I think. I struggled again with this, for many of the same reasons I did before. Maybe now I struggled a little more, due to my bout of insecurity with my work and my lack of motivation in design.

Again, I had focused on the number 1301, and again, I tried to stick with geometric shapes. This tim,e I tried to soften it a bit by using a heart as an outline, however I scrapped that and decided that maybe something more feminine was more apt for what I was trying to convey.

((pic))

As you can see, I did move away from the whole idea of geometric shapes and to something softer and more feminine – based on my friend’s henna designs. I did end up quite liking the design, despite not being very confident in that sort of art form. I feel my interpretation was rather pretty and quite nice, but again, I’m not entirely sure if I would want it tattooed on my body for more than a few weeks.

Then I realised all I wanted was 1301, plain and simple. And although it is bland, maybe a little cliché, that was what I wanted. And so, that’s what I went with, and this is what I finally achieved, after a few long minutes on the computer deliberating;

(pic)

This tattoo, I think, I would actually consider. But then again, watercolour lookds much too complicated, so I would always just settle for a the 1301 in the rectangle in pitch black, or even just a small “13♡1”.

What do I want?

The next segment we spoke about was our dreams, our hopes and what we wanted to be in the future. I was terribly lost, once again.

I thought I knew what I had wanted to be, I honestly did. But this first semester has taught me that I probably actually don’t. I have no idea what I’m even passionate about, as now I‘ve come to realise I’m not sure if I even like design anymore, it’s like it all has become a chore. The only thing I genuinely enjoy doing is writing, but I fear it’s something I could never do – because of a lot of reasons, money and financial security being one of them. However, I suppose being a designer is equally as unprosperous in that department, which leads me to consider if I should ever leave.

But our tutor Gen did comfort us, saying it could be anything we wanted, anything at all, and so I basically started a list of things I felt were important – things I felt like I should take the time to do, since well, forever.

So, I drew, and drew more, and then drew some more. What I ended up with, was this;

(pic)

As you can see, it’s very much filled with some personal goals of mine, none of them quite particular to design. There are some general ones, like finding my passion and myself, to some incredibly general ones, like live on my own.

There are some that I’ve struggled with for a long time – like my mental health in particular, as well as finding my happiness. I’ve struggled with depression & anxiety since I was young, but I was only diagnosed and treated for it only recently – around mid-senior year, when I couldn’t keep it under wraps, what with the added pressure to perform and my subjects being much too hard – in particular, chemistry and physics piled on with Maths B was a tough burden on my egg of a soul.

With my lack of attention, my mental health has deteriorated once again, and my anxiety and depression have dragged me on day by day now, and without seeing either of my psychologists for a good 7 months now, I have begun to notice signs that I’m relapsing back into my rather anxious state. So, I’ve decided it to be one of the most important things for me to address and take control of, as I’m finding it hard to progress with it hindering me so majorly.

The other thing I am quite adamant on is finding my happiness – and that means focusing on my writing. I’ve enjoyed writing since I could string words together, and it means more than anything for me to advance that, as I’ve forgotten about this and left it behind for more than 5 years now. This year I had begun to write again, and it brought me such relief and joy that I had neglected many and most of my studies for it – including this class. I dropped close to everything that stressed me out – as I usually do, and focused so much on it that I had begun to lose a lot – and I mean a lot. I’ve become stressed beyond belief, and added on with the pressure of disliking my course, I’ve figured that I should most likely take a semester off at the least before I continue my studies.